


Face the Same Dream

by limitlessrose (shinealightrose)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Bondage, Characters who make bad decisions, Demons, M/M, Mention of past drinking problems, Self-Destruction, Sexual Content, Urban Fantasy, all of which gets resolved, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-09-27 18:44:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17167319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightrose/pseuds/limitlessrose
Summary: According to Sicheng, the demon has nowhere else to go. Yuta doesn’t believe him, but neither does he know how to say without irony that Sicheng should just go back to hell.





	Face the Same Dream

**Author's Note:**

>    
> Cause tonight I'm gonna come up closer to your heart  
> Deep inside of your heart it's alright  
> Face the same dream as it started to flow  
> We want to be one from now on  
> \- Fly Away With Me, NCT

 

There’s something to be said for drinking alcohol again, and most of it causes Yuta extreme guilt. Yuta has been sober for several months, a personal challenge for himself, a goal he never talks about, never tallies, except in the deep recesses of his brain. Not tonight, however. Not this night, not this party, not at the first glimpse of his best friend Taeyong across the room, perched cozily on a couch and talking about his accident, a pair of colorful crutches resting by his side.

There’s a demon in Yuta’s brain that sets him off, draws out his worst tendencies, his self-destructive nature.

And for just this one, blissful hour— _it feels amazing_.

 

There’s a boy under him. Yuta can’t remember taking him home, but here they are, and his moans are delectable! It’s Halloween, and they’re two of a kind, literally. Yuta keens as he presses his hips down into the bed, into the boy’s lap. His fake demon horns are tossed aside, messing up his hair, but it’s not like he cares. His shirt follows. Something black and sexy because Yuta’s never been one to get totally dressed up. If he thought the demon look suited him, however, it’s nothing compared to the boy underneath. Pale skin which has Yuta practically _begging_ to see more of.

He doesn’t bother removing the kid’s costume. Instead, Yuta rips at his shirt, and there’s a tiny spark of curiosity if this guy won’t be mad come morning, because the wings adorned to his outfit will be surely ruined after Yuta’s done with them. They’re black and feathery, pinned to the bed but nevermind those because-

“Fuck, you even have tattoos! Are those real?!”

His skin is so beautiful. It’s flawless everywhere Yuta touches, except for the swaths of thin, curly symbolic lettering in a gibberish alphabet, dancing across his throat, down his torso, possibly even down past his waistline, and _Yuta cannot wait_ to see more.

It’s then that the boy speaks. With flushed face, eyes closed, throat bared to the world, he whispers through anguished, guttural moans, “They’re real. Ohhh, unhhh…. Please, please, please, just fuck me, love me, fuck me, please…”

Yuta’s heart jumps wildly in his chest. Desires burns in his gut. And shit, because his jeans are too tight for this.

“Oh, you just wait ‘til I get you where I want you, sweetheart. I’m going to fuck you _so good_.”

It’s a promise he plans to make good on. Five months he’s forgone alcohol, and in that same amount of time, all sexual partners. His life is too busy for that. Yuta _makes_ his life too busy for that. But not tonight, oh no, definitely not tonight. The fucked up world Yuta’s made for himself is just gonna need to step aside for the remainder of the night because now he is a man on a mission.

“I’m gonna fuck you so hard,” he says again. “So good, and so hard!”

The boy shivers under him, echoing broken moans of, “Yes, yes, do it, I need it, please. Please love me, do it.”

Yuta crawls off his body long enough to remove his pants, and the boy’s. At some point, he wonders if he should have asked his name. Maybe his age. Whether or not he was an angel in disguise, because fuck everything, he’s so beautiful it’s practically indecent he should be dressed as a little devil. With a headband of short black, curving horns, and that crushed winged monstrosity attached to his back. He’s even got a little tail, dark red and forked, which must have come detached from his pants because it remains caught under him even after he’s naked.

Yuta parts his thighs, reveling in their feel. It’s all soft, smooth skin, and hell yes, but that unique, swirly script tattooed across the rest of his body continues down and around his thighs, stopping halfway to his knees. Definitely real, Yuta thinks, before swooping down and giving that skin a taste.

“How do you want it?” he finally asks. His vision is starting to blur, his head’s more than a bit loopy. And if the boy dares to ask him to take it slow, Yuta cannot guarantee getting all the way the way through without passing out.

“Fast. Hard. Please, just do it. Do it, now.”

Yuta shakes his head, amused. “Not without some prep, I’m not.”

He does it as fast as he can until the boy is squirming and writhing under him. Until his cock is leaking across his navel and his thighs quiver beneath Yuta’s ministrations. If Yuta only had the energy, oh, back in the day if this weren’t just some one-night thing… he’d have taken it slow. Worked him up for hours, maybe tied his arms to the bedpost, anything just to keep this sight in front of his eyes.

“What’s your-” He stops himself before he can finish the question. Yuta doesn’t deserve a name, doesn’t want to know just who he’s about to fuck. This isn’t back in the day, and he needs nothing more to haunt him for whenever he wakes up tomorrow and the alcohol and desire has burned away and all he’s left with again is his own mind.

Luckily the boy doesn’t seem to hear him. And to Yuta’s recollection, he hasn’t offered his name since the moment they met. He remembers it now. It was a dark hallway in that decked out house and Yuta bumped into him by accident. A slurred “sorry” lead to more apologies and a half drunken dance as they tried to shuffle pass each other. At some point, neither of them were moving, and that boy had looked at Yuta with such hope and lust in his eyes, and for a second Yuta might have sworn they darkened completely black. A trick of the light no doubt before their lips collided, and somehow with indecent haste, they ended up here…

Yuta enters him in one long, slow thrust. The boy cries, his back arching, the feathers beneath him crushed and mangled as he writhes on the bed. Yuta wraps his legs around him, reveling in the feel as they tighten of their own accord. He pulls out slowly, testing the boy’s resistance, and only thrusts back in when he begs for it.

So far his only words have been the same utterances of _fuck me, love me, do it, please_.

Fuck him, yes, certainly. Love him, well that’s something else entirely, but right now Yuta doesn’t need to worry about it. He follows instructions for the former demand instead, building up a rhythm until the boy is crying and sobbing, his body shaking under every thrust. And Yuta starts to feel his control slip away, feels the burning feeling in his gut, knows he is close.

He adjusts their legs and leans forward, pinning the boy between his arms. Yuta mouths at the closest patch of skin, just under his collarbones. Eyes closed, he concentrates on the building pressure. His muscles are starting to ache, his head is pounding. Both he and the boy are covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

It’s when he feels him coming that Yuta finally lets loose. He spills deep into the condom with a strangled moan, body staggering. The boy is breathing heavily, chest rising and falling under Yuta’s cheek when he pulls out and collapses. Yuta spares one thought for his well being and has to practically _drag_ his body upright. He slides off the bed, legs wobbling when they hit the floor. The condom barely makes it to the trash can before he staggers back with a box of tissues, the nearest thing he could find.

Yuta dumps it haphazardly on the boy’s chest before crawling over him and flopping down on the bed closest to the wall.

They don’t speak. Yuta is waiting for him to get up, maybe gather his clothes and get those wretched feathers off his bed. At least some seem to have come loose from his costume. One such tickles his nose where it lays on his pillow. Yuta shoos it away, moans from exhaustion, and reaches down for something kind of blanket, whatever may have survived the last twenty minutes.

Honestly now, he just wants to pass out and he’s not even sure he cares if the kid doesn’t get up.

“There’s a bathroom down the hall,” he mutters, eyes clenched tightly shut. Maybe that’ll work as a hint. He wrestles more with his blanket, gets another mouthful of feathers instead.

But his hint doesn’t work.

Yuta listens as the boy’s breathing slows down to a normal pace. And fuck, but what _exactly_ is he waiting for? A fucking invitation to the stay the night? Well, suit himself. Yuta’s well beyond caring. Now that his eyes are closed, he’s starting to feel the after-effects of the alcohol. He can’t remember now what he drank. How did they even get home? A hint of nausea threatens his existence, and even though he can’t see it, it feels like the room is spinning.

All at once he opens his eyes if only to verify that his room is, actually, stable.

 

The boy is staring right at him.

Earlier, Yuta thought he might have had brown eyes. But no. No, it seems he was wrong. Because this beautiful angel dressed as a devil is looking at him without a single drop of emotion, and his eyes, every part of his eyes, are black, pitch black.

 

 

 

 

It’s daylight again when Yuta wakes up. His immediate thought is that he’s cold. His second thought is regret that he never brushed his teeth. His mouth feels like a wad of dirty cotton balls, and even he can smell how bad it is, like soured alcohol and something even fouler, an entire day’s worth of food stench.

And fuck, his body feels like it’s a million years old.

Did he have sex last night? It certainly feels like it. His thigh muscles are stiff when he goes to move them. His covers are all over the place. There’s an empty space next to him on the bed, and well, at least that’s good. There’s nothing quite so awkward as waking up to the stranger from the night before and having to actually _talk_.

Yuta rubs his eyes, drags his feet, and dangles them off the side of the bed. His vision is blurry, just a little obscured by the sunlight shining in through the window.

That causes him to pause. Yuta _never_ leaves the window shades open.

No wonder he’s blind. He stays still long enough for his eyes to adjust, drawing up the blankets to around his knees. It’s cold in his room, like not only are the window shades open, but the window itself is open. He can feel the cool autumn air drafting through his room.

“The fuck?” he whispers, still rubbing his eyes.

He focuses on the floor long enough to spot a discarded sweatshirt and pull it over his head. Then, last night’s underwear. A quick rummage through his messy dresser drawers and he finds a pair of sweatpants. It’s his least flattering look, but at least he’s not going to freeze to death before dealing with that window.

Maybe his one-night stand couldn’t find the door on his way out. Yuta chuckles. Maybe he went through the window instead-

The window…

Yuta stares at the window. And stares…

Before it, perched on Yuta’s own desk chair, is the boy from last night.

In profile, it’s worthy of a renaissance painting. Yuta never saw him before in any kind of decent lighting. But now, here he sits. With knees drawn up, wearing only a pair of black skinny jeans, the boy gazes outward, pale skin illuminated twofold in the morning sun, only marred by that curvy tattooed script which looks even more beautiful in daylight. His toes are bare, his arms he has wrapped around his knees. He looks the picture of melancholy, though his face is still beautiful. Strong cheekbones and a perfect jawline. Black hair, and two, short, curved horns protruding from his head. And a forked tail.

And wings. Blackish, feathery wings, only halfway extended, but still, they take up the entire corner, and now that he’s shirtless, at this angle, Yuta can tell that they are _not_ , in fact, connected to any kind of Halloween outfit. They protrude right out of his shoulder blades.

Yuta’s jaw drops. All words are lost to him.

The boy, no this angel, _no,_ this demon, turns to look at him.

“Good morning,” he says, with only the barest hint of a smile. The expression is gone a second later when he turns back to stare out the window, a long, heavy sigh following.

Yuta still doesn’t know what to say. His mind is doing a rundown of everything he can remember from last night. He ran into a fellow costumed devil, kissed him in the hallway, brought him home, fucked him. Fell asleep without giving it a second thought, and now it’s morning and something about this picture before him isn’t right, but Yuta no longer thinks he’s wearing a costume…

It looks entirely too real.

And then, the vision before him speaks again. Without turning his head, the boy says, “I know you probably expected me to be gone by now, but truthfully, I’m not sure where else to go.”

Yuta swallows all accumulated saliva and his confusion. Okay, that was _not_ what he expected to hear first.

“Uhhmmmm.”

He can’t take his eyes off of him. It’s too unreal, too impossible, but he’s way too cold and way too sick feeling to believe this is a dream. In fact, he kind of wants to throw up.

Ten seconds later, his stomach decides to follow through. Ignore the _demon_ in his room, Yuta thinks; he suddenly has no choice but to hurl himself off the bed and into the bathroom, where he proceeds to get the toilet lid up in time to spill his guts from the night before. It’s sickening, and the smell makes him gag, his stomach heaving up bits of food and viscous liquid, and then continues even when he’s got nothing left to give.

Yuta dry heaves for so long he’s almost forgotten about the presence of that strange boy. At least until he feels a hand on his back, and someone running the water faucet. A moment later there’s a wet towel offering in front of his lips. Yuta takes it and wipes his mouth.

The boy hums just out of sight.

“Serves you right, you know.”

Yuta has to shove the towel away to dry heave some more. His stomach muscles are starting to ache. When he’s done, the towel has been rinsed and rewetted. This time the boy holds it to his forehead and gently wipes down across his cheeks, lips, and jaw.

When he can speak again, Yuta practically gasps. “Excuse me?”

The boy exhales slowly. “You vowed never to drink again. Are you really not surprised to find yourself vomiting over a toilet bowl like this?”

Yuta has to shake his head, squint his eyes, and clear his entire vision again.

He repeats himself. “Excuse me? How do you know that- _Who are you_ that you know that about me?”

Without answering, the boy retreats from the bathroom. Yuta finds him a minute later when he re-enters his room. This time he’s back on the chair in front of the window, but facing Yuta. His wings look smaller like he’s deliberately trying to fold them, to hide them. He doesn’t manage it, and if he’s trying not to look intimidating maybe he should have done something with his horns or tail too.

Yuta stops in the doorway, holds onto the frame like if he steps inside he’s going to die. It’s enough to take his breath away, again.

It’s enough to persuade him that none of this is fake.

“What are you?” he asks again, slowly this time. He’s beginning to grow genuinely afraid. He doesn’t even need a concise answer to know that this _thing_ in front of him is somehow evil.

And yet, last night he had been so pliant, so delicate… he’d actually begged Yuta, again and again, to fuck him, _love him_ , please, please, _please…_

The boy shrugs. “I’m a demon.”

Yuta forces himself to breathe. “A… demon.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a demon.”

Another nod. “As you can see.” He holds out his arms as if they’re the most incriminating thing about his body.

“You didn’t just dress up as a demon last night, did you?” Yuta has to ask.

The boy shakes his head. “No, as you can see. I am a demon.”

Very, very slowly, Yuta walks to his bed. The mattress dips down when he sits on it. He never takes his eyes off of this _demon_.

“You keep saying that, but, it’s not like I’ve ever actually _seen_ a demon before.”

That’s when the boy gives off his first real, genuine sign of amusement. His lips perk up, smiling that flawless smile, and his eyes twinkle in merriment, one short little laugh. “Unlikely. Most are just better than me at covering up.”

“Covering, up?”

For answer, the boy shivers, and his wings elongate artlessly until he’s filled up his entire side of the room. The room grows dark, the window almost entirely blocked. Yuta actually jumps backward in fright, heart beating wildly in his chest. Each wing is fully a meter long when fully stretched. Then the boy shivers again, pulling them into his back. Even so, they stick out on either side. He shrugs.

“I can’t make them disappear altogether. I’m not that skilled.”

The best Yuta can do is mimic him. “You’re… not that skilled. You’re a demon, and you’re not that skilled. But, you’re in my house, and, and... Excuse me, but what, why are you here?”

His sad little smile is back in place, and he sighs. “A good question. Humans rarely ask the good questions, but I guess that one is alright.” He stops like he’s not going to answer the question. At the first sign of Yuta’s lips opening, however, he continues. “I thought last night that I might be able to tell you, but now I think it’s rather silly. The reason I’m here.”

Yuta gulps, and his brain is now frantically supplying every absurd reason he can possibly imagine. For now at least, it doesn’t seem like the demon is going to attack him, or drag him down to hell, but he can’t get over the very human instinct that he’s in mortal danger.

“Is it… is it, because of me?”

The demon looks him dead in the eye, and then smiles, shaking his head. “Not particularly, no. I’ll admit I was drawn to you. You have so much, loathing in you. So much self- _disgust_. You’re a beacon for someone of my kind. And yet, well… I’m a demon. I can’t always sense the good in people, but you… you seem like you have it. And I… well, I wanted… well, I just _want_. Does that answer your question? It doesn’t, right? I should leave, but I don’t have anywhere to go. And the view you have from this window is so… foul. So foul and I like it so, so much.”

The view from Yuta’s window overlooks part of a rooftop, an alley, and the neighborhood dumpster. If anything could prove the boy in front of him is not actually a boy, and is indeed a true demon, it’d be this.

So he decides to throw all caution to the wind and do as he almost did last night.

“What’s your name?” he asks, swallowing in anticipation.

The demon looks back at him again. His eyes are pitch black, but his smile is gentle.

“So you finally ask. It’s Sicheng. My name is Sicheng.”

 

 

 

 

Yuta follows him around for the rest of the morning. Or perhaps it would be fairer to say, Sicheng spends the next several hours exploring and investigating everything in Yuta’s tiny apartment while Yuta sits still watching him warily.

Sicheng seems fascinated by the most mundane things.

_“Oh, a stapler. I’ve always wanted to use one of these things.”_

_“Is this a drinking glass? Does it break?”_

_“Is this a real nail? Like the kind that goes in the wall?”_

“Actually,” Yuta answers, “that’s a screw. Fell out of… something, I don’t remember what.”

Sicheng takes note of that, humming softly. Yuta tries not to chew on his fingernails but he’s been sitting on his overstuffed, sagging couch for the better part of two hours with his eyes pinned to the demon and wondering, just wondering, if today is the day he dies. Sicheng’s next discovery leads him to pick up a rather heavy looking pencil weight, the kind that might kill a man if he gets hit over the head with it. Sicheng has so far shown no fascination for anything softer than a fly swatter which he then proceeded to try out against an unfortunately placed fake plant in Yuta’s living room window.

“Oops, sorry,” says the demon when the green plastic thing hits the floor, shattering the plastic pot, fake moss spewing across the ground.

Yuta doesn’t bother to answer. He’s not upset, really. His left thumbnail has been decimated by his nervously shivering teeth. His eyes are starting to water because he refuses to let Sicheng out of his sight.

The demon eventually plops down on an armchair and levels a gaze at Yuta. It’s cool and calculating. Yuta wasn’t ready for Sicheng’s blatant curiosity of his surroundings to diminish so fast. His pupils are large and black. He still hasn’t put on a shirt. Yuta finally looks away, willing his stubborn teeth to stop quivering.

“You’ve been ignoring something all morning,” says the demon, out of the blue.

Yuta swallows hard. He hasn’t been ignoring Sicheng, that’s for sure. He has no idea what any of this means, but then—his phone buzzes quietly from under his leg where Yuta stashed it earlier. And Yuta, ignores it.

 _Oh_.

There must be at least twenty unread text messages by now, given how many times Yuta felt it vibrating and refused to pick it up after the first time. It’s Ten probably, still. And the first text was something to the tune of ‘ _saw you drinking last night. What happened?’_

Yuta doesn’t want to answer that. He’d much rather ignore it. But apparently, Sicheng _knows_.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

Ten is the only person in Yuta’s friend group who’s actually asked him about why he stopped. Not that Yuta gave him an honest answer, but since then Ten seemed to step up and volunteer to be his accountability partner, and while Yuta didn’t ask for that, he never told him no. Ten is persistent and annoying, but he did well at this one job. Now that Yuta’s broken the rule, he doesn’t want to face him.

Two minutes pass by in silence. Then his phone buzzes again, reminding him it’s there. Sicheng’s eyebrows go up, and he nods at Yuta’s lap.

Yuta shifts subtly on the cushions. Maybe his phone will drop into the hole in the back of the couch never to be seen again, like so many lost remotes. Maybe it will magically silence itself and Yuta won’t have to hear it.

“He’s on his way up, you know,” says Sicheng.

This time Yuta sits up straight.

“What! Who is?”

Sicheng shrugs. “Your friend. The one you’ve been ignoring. I can feel his passion from here.” The demon smiles. “He’s worried about you. Practically seething. He’s _angry_. I think… maybe you never told him the whole story, but he knows. He knows enough anyway.”

Yuta’s sweating now. He grabs his phone, swipes up and reads the messages in reverse order.

 

_You better answer your damned door_

_I’m coming up now._

 

_Wtf Yuta just answer me or something_

_Are you home?_

 

_I told you to talk to me about these things!_

_Yuta what’s the matter?_

 

_You got wasted didn’t you. Ok that’s okay. Just send me a text or something pls_

 

_Are you even awake rn?_

 

_Wtf what did you say????_

_He said you were mean to him when you left?!_

_Did something happen?!_

_I just talked to Taeyong_

 

_Saw you drinking last night. What happened?_

 

“Fuck.”

Ten is apparently on his way up the stairs and will be barging into Yuta’s apartment at any second. He even has a key. Fuck, shit, dammit, why did Yuta give him a key! But no, he never gave Ten a key. He gave _Lucas_ a key, but Lucas is Ten’s boyfriend and they share everything, and Lucas knows even less about why Yuta stopped drinking than Ten does and apparently, Sicheng knows everything and—

Ten starts banging on the door right as Yuta stands up. Yuta is standing, and Ten is at the door, but there’s a fucking _demon_ sitting comfortably on an armchair in Yuta’s apartment looking oh so comfortable, and he has horns and wings and an actual, cursed, _forked tail_!

“In my room. Now!” Yuta hisses, loud as he dares.

He makes a dash for the door, hoping to block Ten’s view if he decides to use the key.

“Yuta? Are you awake!?” comes the echo of Ten’s voice, reverberating through the wood. Seconds later, the sounds of a key in the lock. Yuta curses again, determined to get the door open of his own volition. There’s not much he has control of right now, but at least he can be allowed to open his own damned door. In the panic of the moment, he doesn’t check if Sicheng has disappeared or not.

Yuta swings it open, looking frazzled, feeling harassed. Ten almost falls inward from where his hand is still attached to the key.

“Hey!” says Yuta, breathlessly.

There’s silence for a moment. Ten blinks first, then he stands up, maintaining his dignity. His eyes do a quick sweep over Yuta as if checking his state. By his expression, he looks shocked, but a little relieved. Yuta watches as his friend bites down on his lower lip, visibly relaxing.

“Uhm. Can I come in?”

“Sure. Uhh. Yeah, yeah. I just… wait, I mean…”

But Ten is already coming in. He doesn’t look around. Yuta’s apartment would be familiar to him, and since Yuta isn’t in the habit of bringing strange boys home, he wouldn’t necessarily be searching for another body. Ten sweeps in through the framework, eyes downcast. He strips his outer coat and throws it over the back of the couch, pockets his keys in his jeans, and pulls out his phone.

Behind him, Yuta shuts the door. His breath is coming out shallowly. And his heart stops completely when he makes eye contact with Sicheng. The demon hasn’t moved but has merely pulled up a blanket and made himself cozy in the chair. That side of the room sits in partial shadow, and Ten still hasn’t noticed. Sicheng’s wings are… almost invisible.

Yuta makes a slightly strangled sound. Ten stares at him suddenly. “You didn’t answer my messages. I was worried.”

On a good day, Ten has a loud voice, capable of piercing anything. Today though it’s soft, and Yuta knows it’s because he’s genuinely concerned. Guilt strikes him deep in his gut, warring with his panic.

“I uhm. I know. I’m sorry.” There’s something strikingly different between Ten’s voice now, and the tone of his most recent texts. “I didn’t know you’d come to check on me. Sorry for making you come here.”

Ten shakes his head. “No, no, don’t apologize. I mean, I just worried, and after I talked to Taeyong I—”

Yuta winces. He doesn’t want to think about Taeyong, and he doesn’t want to explain to Ten, but there’s still an actual _demon_ sitting in this room with them. He can’t ignore him forever, and eventually, Ten is going to realize.

Unless. Unless he’s invisible to everyone but Yuta?

The self-destructive part of him wants to find out. Before Ten can continue, Yuta makes an apologetic gesture in the direction of Sicheng. He waves a hand as if to explain why he doesn’t want to talk. Ten looks, then blinks a couple times. It’s clear in a heartbeat he hasn’t really noticed anything but a half-naked man sitting in Yuta’s living room, and he looks away.

“Oh. I’m sorry. You had company.”

Yuta shrugs and scratches the back of his head. At the risk of completely losing it, this deception is the only thing keeping him going. “Hmm. Yeah.”

Ten looks sheepish, also like he has a million questions. Yuta can guess what they are. _Why did you drink? Did you take him home last night? What did you even say to Taeyong?_ So for once, he’s actually grateful for Sicheng’s presence. Ten isn’t a fool, and he’s a decent human being. He’s not going to interrogate Yuta in front of a stranger. Ten is too good for this world. Not like Yuta. Which is why Yuta really wants him _gone_ before he realizes he’s occupying this space with some extra-terrestrial, _no,_ hell-bound _demon_ from another plane of existence! If Yuta’s going down, he doesn’t need to take anyone with him. God and the Devil know he’s already done his share of the damage when it comes to Taeyong.

“I’ll head out then,” says Ten.

All Yuta can do is nod and not try to rush him too terribly fast. He closes the door behind Ten, a heavy sigh escaping his lungs. It’s silent in the apartment save for his breaths, and Sicheng’s. Do demons really need to breathe, he wonders? Of course, after last night the question ought to be rhetorical. Demons have sex and they have orgasms just like anyone else. They also have wings, horns, curly demon tails, and so many tattoos that Yuta braces himself when he turns around, daring himself to meet Sicheng’s eyes as the demon loses the blanket he’s had wrapped around his chest.

The look on his face is unlike what he expects. Sicheng looks almost pensive. He tilts his head, lips pressed together. In that soft, low voice Yuta’s fast becoming used to, he hums, murmuring, “Curious.”

“What’s curious?”

“Your friend. He is curious.”

“He didn’t notice you, that’s all I care about,” says Yuta. He hauls himself back to the couch and picks up his phone, systematically ignoring Ten’s newest text. He must have sent it right outside in the hallway.

 

_I’m really sorry to have bothered you right now. Just, call me sometime later when you can. Ok? OK?_

 

“It’s not that though,” says Sicheng.

Yuta shoots him a blank, weary look. “What is it then?”

The demon muses for another half a minute before speaking. “I mean, it’s curious about his anger. It was so palpable before. But when he saw you, it faded away. It became something different. I didn’t expect that. I was waiting for the outburst. But in just that short amount of time, his anger became concern.”

Yuta swallows thickly. “Well, that’s Ten for you.”

“He’s a friend of yours.”

“Yes? I mean, isn’t that obvious.”

Sicheng smiles. “It is, but do you know what? I think I learned something today about your kind.”

“My kind?”

“About _humans._  About friendship. This is… strange to me.”

‘You don’t have friends?”

Sicheng fixates on Yuta with a wry expression, his black eyes almost glowing among the brightness of the room. There’s a sadness in them, a lack like an abyss.

“Friends. Now that is an interesting word. I have what you might call friends. But they, they are nothing like this. Like what humans are to each other. What humans _can_ be to each other. It seems I made the right choice coming here.”

Resigned, Yuta leans his head back on the couch and closes his eyes. His guest, apparently, is here to stay.

 

 

 

 

The sun is setting darkly behind clouds and buildings when Yuta shows up later for work. His shift at the grocery store begins promptly at 7 o’clock, and for the next six hours, he’ll overtax his muscles and limits of his patience moving boxes and restocking shelves. If someone takes pity on him, maybe there will be a slight break at the cash registers where he can  _not_ socialize with the customers who come through, most of them just as tired and cranky as he is.

Yuta works like this six days a week; has been working like this for six months. It’s not how he started his young adult life, but somehow—and Yuta knows exactly how—this is what life has turned to be.

“Hey, Yuta! Cover for me on Aisle 4?” comes a genuine plea for help as soon as Yuta walks in, employee outfit hanging unattractively on his body, the collar too stiff, sleeves a tad bit too short.

“Hello, to you too, Mark.” He waves at the high schooler who looks like he’s about to pee on himself and heads to Aisle 4 where one of their managers is barking orders to another part-timer about needing more hands on deck to shift a large container of laundry detergents. Yuta sighs as he takes Mark’s place, ignoring questions about the other boy’s location.

Five years ago neither Yuta nor anyone of his friends, family members, or acquaintances would have pictured him like this. A part-timer in staffer’s clothing, stocking shelves with a grimace on his face.

Five years ago Yuta was a fresh-faced college student embarking on his first semester of higher education and putting other students to shame. One time he made an A- on a term paper and spent the following two weeks persuading his professor to let him earn extra credit just to bring it up to a solid, mid-level A. In math, he was unbeatable, in language, a master. He took choir for his arts extra-curricular and a few dance classes just for fun. In these he met Lucas, then Taeyong. And through them, Ten; also Jungwoo, Doyoung, and Kun. These days, he only hangs out with the first three, and usually because he’s forced to. Because Taeyong still considers himself Yuta’s best friend, doesn’t take a hint, and won’t let Yuta say no.

An hour into his shift, a tired child knocked over a display of snack boxes. Yuta gives the boy’s bedraggled-looking mother a grimace and sets to work righting the mess. All the while he replays his last conversation with his parents who, just two days ago, had given him another lecture about ‘wasting his life’ and ‘fooling around’. The funny thing is, no—the unfunny thing is—Yuta doesn’t even disagree.

_When are you going back to school? Why won’t you tell us why you dropped out?! You were halfway through your Masters, Yuta! Explain! Explain to us why!!_

Explanations though? No, explanations are the last thing Yuta wants to consider. It’s bad enough he has to live with himself and the consequences of his own actions. Yuta already has to live in a world where Taeyong is… the way he is. No one but Yuta needs to know why. Not Taeyong, not his parents; certainly they don’t need to know the ins and outs of why Yuta is punishing himself. Why he dropped out, why he lives the way he does. No one needs to know.

But of course, it seems there _is_ one creature who does know.

Yuta returns home well after midnight half expecting he’d only dreamed the morning’s discovery or the previous evening’s encounter with a _demon_. Instead, he finds Sicheng exactly where he left him. Yuta stands by the door, shuts it softly behind him, and exhales.

“Have you even moved since I went to work?”

The demon is still on the armchair, though he has managed to acquire a footstool, an extra blanket, and a set of supernatural thrillers Yuta once read and hasn’t seen in at least a few years. Sicheng puts one of them down to consider Yuta in the doorway.

“You’re back,” he coos.

It sends a shiver down Yuta’s spine. The Sicheng before him now looks a whole lot like the boy Yuta thought he was last night: beautiful, seductive, innocent. He can’t help remembering how he sounded in bed, how he felt, melting beneath Yuta’s hands.

He shakes his head of the memory and walks past Sicheng, ignoring him.

This isn’t Yuta. This isn’t how Yuta acts anymore. He doesn’t drink, and he doesn’t bring home strange boys that turn out to be demons. Yuta doesn’t study, he doesn’t go to school, he doesn’t fly home every month to visit his family. He _definitely_ doesn’t acknowledge his sexual needs anymore.

Once, once he could balance all of that and make his professors smile when they passed back his assignments. He had a proud father, a cheerful mom, and a sister who adored him. Taeyong was his best friend, and Taeyong could actually fucking _walk_. Taeyong, who wanted to be a dancer.

Yuta sets on a pot for ramen, cursing himself when he realizes he grabbed two packets. His skin prickles at the presence settling behind him. Sicheng’s presence, hovering, thoughtful, hideous and too _knowing_.

“Why did you come here?” Yuta demands. “When are you leaving?”

Sicheng calmly places a hand on Yuta’s shoulder. Yuta can’t even call up the energy to shake it off.

“You want me to go that bad?” asks the demon.

Yes. No, Yuta thinks. He doesn’t trust himself to say anything out loud. Instead, he nurses the pot of boiling water, adds the ramen, eventually serves it with two pairs of chopsticks. Sicheng sits opposite him on the table as they eat together, in silence.

“You still haven’t told me why exactly you’re here. Or what you want.”

“What I want?” Sicheng repeats. He sets down his chopsticks, smiles, and looks off to the side. Yuta stares at his profile, that angelic face graced not with a halo but with two angled horns the size of Yuta’s index fingers. “I told you last night what I wanted.”

_Love me, fuck me. Please…_

When Sicheng turns to look back at Yuta, his eyes are once again pitch black.

 

 

 

 

According to Sicheng, the demon has nowhere else to go. Yuta doesn’t believe him, but neither does he know how to say without irony that Sicheng should just go back to hell. They settle into a complicated kind of domesticity. Yuta works in the evenings, returns home after midnight, fucks Sicheng into a stupor, then rolls over and falls asleep. Late sometime the following morning he wakes, then shares an awkward breakfast/lunch with a demon who still won’t answer his questions. In the meantime, Yuta ignores the rest of his life even more so than normal. He leaves Ten’s texts on _read_. His voicemails are starting to queue up. Lucas once tried to come by himself, and Yuta barely got the message in time to reply, lying about his work shift and claiming not to be at home. Taeyong called once, twice… upwards of six times, and never did Yuta actually answer his phone.

“You really are in a state of self-destruction, aren’t you?” Sicheng observes one afternoon from his favorite spot in the armchair. He’s read nearly half of Yuta’s library, each thriller causing him to scoff more and more. Yuta tunes him out more often than not, but even he can’t refute the crazy novelesque logic of some of the books’ characters and plot twists.

Still, those are better conversation pieces than the one Sicheng just dropped on him now.

“So what if I am?”

He hasn’t disclosed his thoughts to the demon, showed him any of his messages, or let him listen to the voicemails. Somehow though, Sicheng knows. Call it his demon sense—Sicheng won’t call it anything at all—but the demon is inconsiderately aware of the worst of Yuta’s nature.

The funny thing is, the longer Yuta remains in what feels like captivity, tiptoeing around a demon in his very own house, the more he wants to know about Sicheng. He tries to fight it, but the urge is growing strong. Yuta supposes it’s inevitable. Here he is, faced with the improbable reality that demons are real, visible, touchable; that they’re emotional. Yuta doesn’t want to be so curious. But Sicheng isn’t one of his friends that Yuta can brush aside as easily as his phone messages. Sicheng is living breathing proof of the underbelly of the world, literally, and especially of Yuta’s sins.

Maybe that’s why he’s gotten so good at deflecting the attention away from himself.

It’s but six in the evening, and on Yuta’s rare day off from work. A week ago he met Sicheng at that party he allowed Taeyong to persuade him into going. Yuta is not about to go out and repeat the same mistake. For the first time, he even broke radio silence and briefly answered Taeyong’s call, if only to apologize for being ‘sick’ and then declining to go out and share a meal with him and the other guys. Sicheng only stared at him for the entire duration of the call, all thirty seconds of it.

The demon is still staring at him now. It’s starting to get on Yuta’s nerves.

“What exactly do you want me to say?” Yuta insists.

It’s like walking around on eggshells with Sicheng sharing his space. Or perhaps there’s a more apt metaphor, like hot coals, or something. One of them is going to break, and Yuta would advise anyone that it’s going to be _him_ , not the demon, who breaks. Who knows what demons are even made of anyways. The souls of darkness, maybe. Or is that just what they feed on?

Sicheng shrugs and makes to walk off. Yuta follows him. He knows this routine now, though granted it usually happens later at night. Yuta stalks Sicheng into the bedroom and stands at the foot of the bed while the demon climbs across the mattress. Sicheng doesn’t wear a shirt, nor has he ever in practically all this time. It’s not comfortable against his wings, so he claims.

Sicheng lets those loose too, black feathered monstrosities that they are.

 _“Why feathers?”_ Yuta had asked him once. _“Why not just skin and sinew, or whatever?”_

Sicheng had chided him for reading too many lame supernatural thrillers as if he didn’t get his kicks the same way. Then, later, much much later he’d whispered in a tired voice, “ _Because they’re beautiful, don’t you think so?”_

Beautiful, Yuta thinks now. It’s true, everything about Sicheng is beautiful. Dangerous, deadly, and beautiful. How he ever mistook Sicheng for some crude, innocent boy in a demon costume on Halloween night, Yuta will never understand.

He throws off his shirt, chasing Sicheng slowly onto the bed. In the week he’s lived here, the demon’s commandeered more than just Yuta’s living space. He’s wearing a pair of Yuta’s old pants, skin-tight black jeans. Most of the time he leaves his tail inside his pants. But not this pair, not this evening. Yuta chokes on the image of that forked demon tail protruding from a makeshift hole in the pants, then abruptly looks away. The wings he can handle, and the horns he can live with, but that tail is somehow too otherworldly, even for Yuta.

Still though he crawls between Sicheng’s spread legs, using his palms to press on the demon’s lower back. Sicheng sinks onto the bedspread with soft exclamation. He turns his head on a pillow, right cheek to the pillowcase with his arms wrapped and buried around it. Yuta begins by stroking one hand up the spiny ridge of one wing.

He forgets for a minute that his phone is still stashed in the back pocket of his jeans. It vibrates, disrupting Yuta’s flow. Still on his knees, he reaches around with his free hand to pull it out, reading the text bubble as it chimes through. It’s Taeyong again.

 

_Sorry again that you’re sick._

_Ten said you had a boyfriend though?!  Do we get to meet him sometime?_

 

Yuta doesn’t allow himself the time to feel panicked. In a single flick of the wrist, his phone lands on the floor. So Ten snitched on him. But Ten doesn’t even _know_. Who has a boyfriend? Yuta? Implying that Sicheng is his boyfriend is laughable. Sicheng is a demon, and at this moment he’s a very pliant demon. Yuta casts his fingers along the feathery line of both wings, relishing the feeling of Sicheng shuddering beneath him.

Is he playing into some kind of a trap, using a demon this way? In all those silly thrillers he—and now Sicheng—read, demons are powerful creatures, demonstrative and dominating. They can rip apart a human being with one hand, damn them for an eternity with a single look. And they’re veritable devils in bed, literally, actually.

For some reason, however, Sicheng is not like this. From the first night he declared his preferences, from the first time he repeated them, Yuta’s known that something is different about this demon. Sicheng isn’t here to boss him around. Sicheng wants to _be bossed_. And dare he think it, but Sicheng apparently wants to be _loved_.

Love, that’s something Yuta doesn’t understand. He loved himself once, he loved his friends. Yuta betrayed both, and now he only toys with the idea the same way he toys with Sicheng. The same way Sicheng lets himself be toyed with.

Yuta grows hard just from mapping Sicheng’s body with his hands. He can’t get enough of it, that smooth, glorious skin. The markings on his back. It’s demon-speak according to Sicheng, who won’t translate it. Yuta wonders what horrible things are spoken there, but he touches them anyway, fascinated by the seductive script which mars the demon’s body. With one hand he palms himself; the other he uses to feel down Sicheng’s clothed legs. The demon’s thighs fit these pants like a dream, better than when Yuta wore them. He shreds them off in seconds, and Sicheng keens, hips lifting, knees shifting to bear the weight of his body.

“That’s it, there you go,” whispers Yuta, further spreading Sicheng’s legs. The demon’s cock hangs heavily between them, balls pulled up tight, but he makes no effort to touch himself or seek any form of friction. His head remains on the pillow, eyes closed, arms wrapped around his head. Yuta shirks back and merely gazes upon the sight.

There’s a clock ticking from somewhere off to his right. Yuta doesn’t count the seconds, but he feels them go by. His breath is caught tightly in his throat. Some unspeakable fear grips him to the point he doesn’t know what’s rational or not.

For one week, a whole week, he’s been enamored with a demon, and it strikes him all at once. Something like shame mixes with guilt, mixing with desire. Sicheng’s words come back to haunt him. Is he really in a state of self-destruction? Yuta won’t answer it aloud, but he knows what he would say. And that is, _Yes, yes I am._

“I want to tie you up,” is all he says now.

And Sicheng moans his assent. “Mmmm, yes. Do it, do it, please.”

Yuta finds a soft, worn belt. He brings Sicheng’s hands down from the pillow, placing them behind his back.

“Sorry if this hurts,” he murmurs, to Sicheng’s satisfaction. He’s never done this before, never quite felt the need to try it, never had a partner who wanted it. Is Sicheng stronger than the average human being? Yuta doesn’t know, but the demon only gasps when Yuta pulls the belt through its own loop. It’s not tightly done; Sicheng could easily release himself. The thing is though, he doesn’t.

“Fold your wings. Roll on your back.”

And fuck, Sicheng is so compliant like that. He does exactly as he’s told, blackened eyes leveled at Yuta’s face somehow in a delicate manner. His hands are caught behind his back, pressing into the mattress.

“I’m going to blow you now. Don’t move.”

Sicheng hums again, nodding once, and Yuta leans down to taste a stripe up the bottom side of the demon’s cock. He lowers himself to the bed, elbows digging in, hands pushing Sicheng’s thighs up and out of his way. Sicheng is so flexible. He doesn’t make a squeak except when Yuta takes him all the way into his mouth.

Yuta drives him all the way to the end, pulling off only when Sicheng’s desperate moans can no longer be concealed. He sits up finally, and strokes him to completion, reveling in the taut muscles of Sicheng’s abdomen twisting with pleasure, writhing in all glory as he comes heavily across his stomach.

“That’s it, that’s it…” says Yuta, working him through it all with his own aching desire still straining against his pants.

Sicheng opens his eyes wide enough that Yuta knows what he’s about to say, about to plead. He cuts him off.

“You wanted more? Hmm, no. How about you wait instead?”

There’s a moment where Yuta swears his vision swirls, else it’s the demon himself in front of him, whirring in and out between reality and… somewhere else. Yuta shakes his head, the vision stabilizes before he can doubt himself further. Neither one of them have moved, and Sicheng is still on the bed, covered in his own mess, eyes covetous and begging for more. He writhes on the bed, and Yuta knows he can’t be so comfortable with his hands and arms bound behind him, wings pressed and crinkled on the bed. Even still, he holds his knees up, legs out of the way right where Yuta left them, heels digging into the sheets, and he doesn’t dare move.

Slowly, Yuta works his own pants down off his legs. And then, because he can, he takes his cock in his hand and crawls towards Sicheng’s face.

It may not be possible, but he swears the demon’s eyes grow darker, blacker. Sicheng parts his mouth and Yuta runs his other hand through his hair, brushing gently against one horn. He won’t grab it, doesn’t want to acknowledge that demonic aspect so thoroughly, but when Sicheng closes his eyes and extends his tongue, now this, this Yuta can oblige.

He holds the tip of his cock over Sicheng’s open mouth, letting a drop of precum rub off.  Then he shifts his weight, letting his legs hover over Sicheng’s collar bones, not sitting completely, but not giving him respite either. Yuta grabs a fistful of black hair and strokes his cock with the other hand. His hips bounce, balls brushing over Sicheng’s face ever so often. The demon never closes his mouth, he just lies there and takes it, breath shallow, nostrils flaring. When Yuta comes, he does so all over Sicheng’s pretty, pretty face. His hand is covered, and this too he wipes over the demon’s jaw, holding it in place as he shifts his body lower, and lightly, very lightly, he leans down and presses a kiss to his face.

 

 

 

 

Yuta wakes up long before the sun is up. It’s his first indication that something is wrong. So, he went to sleep too early. Yuta _never_ rises before first light. His eyes pop open, squinting through the darkened room, feeling the breeze. It’s oddly like that first morning when he realized what Sicheng was.

The window is open. But Sicheng is still curled up naked by his side.

Yuta pushes aside one of the demon’s wings where it was partially covering him up, hears the demon stir but not awake. Somehow Yuta knows that they’re not alone in this room.

He sits up. “Who’s there?”

He’s not afraid. Yuta’s lived with a demon for a whole week, and maybe his conscience is skewed, but damned or not, he’s ready to face whoever, or whatever, has come. Nudging the demon beside him gently on the side, Yuta sits up and pulls the blanket over his lap. He’s cold, not modest, but facing the unknown.

“I said, who’s there?”

There’s a presence in the corner of his room, a shadow darker than the dark. Yuta focuses his eyesight until he can pick out the looming creature sitting on his desk chair, gaze on Yuta and Sicheng in the bed.

Finally, there comes a low chuckle.

“Are you a demon too?” Yuta asks. He picks out the outline of a familiar set of wings. They might be even larger than Sicheng’s, though in this light it’s hard to tell.

The creature’s chuckle becomes a sigh, then the sound of musing. Another short laugh and it finally speaks.

“Going by this beautiful picture before me, it seems you know our type well.”

 _Our type_. Meaning, Sicheng’s type. A demon indeed. Yuta gives Sicheng another nudge, wondering how he manages to remain so calm. Yuta’s truly surrounded now, and he never did get an explanation for why him, why now, why so many demons in the night.

“I know your type,” he replies coolly. “So, who are you?”

“You want my name?”

The demon’s voice is higher than Sicheng’s, crueler though, infinitely more dangerous. Yuta guesses he’s not here for a quick fuck.

“You likely know my name. Why can’t I have yours?”

Before the demon can respond, Sicheng is rustling under his blanket. Yuta stays silent and just waits. Sicheng is slow to awake, but once he’s arisen he wastes no time. Yuta watches him rub his eyes, then focus on his fellow.

“Moon Taeil,” he says resolutely. “So you found me.” Like Yuta, Sicheng doesn’t sound terribly stunned or agitated.

“Sicheng,” the other acknowledges. “Don’t you just look… cozy.”

“What do you want, Taeil?”

“You imply I want something? Why Sicheng, I’m offended. I only came to visit my friend. You’ve been so elusive of late. What, you’ve no explanation? You force me to reveal myself to a human, and this is the welcome I receive?”

Yuta remembers asking Sicheng if he had the same concept for ‘friends’. Is this his answer, this demon who speaks so petulantly? Yuta has a burgeoning desire to see what he looks like. Without asking, he leans over and flips on a light. His eyes sting, he has to shut them. And once acclimated he almost wishes he hadn’t done it.

Where Sicheng is beautiful, Taeil is stunning. Black hair that falls forward towards his face, horns several inches longer than Sicheng’s, pointed at the ends which makes them look twice as lethal. His wings _do_ have a greater wingspan, though the blackened feathers are streaked through with a dark red, the shade almost bloody. His eyes are currently blue, his ears are pierced, and the demon-speak tattoos almost seem to leap from his skin, up his exposed collarbones to his neck, until their curlicue script vanishes into the hairline. Where Sicheng came to him barefaced, Taeil comes with shadowy eye makeup, longer lashes, and unnaturally glossed lips.

“My poor, poor Sicheng,” says the second demon when Sicheng won’t speak. “You always yearned for something more. And this, this human is where you think you will find it?”

Yuta doesn’t understand the implication, but he does get the snarl that sneaks from Sicheng’s throat.

“You don’t know anything,” hisses the demon.

“Oh, but I do,” says Taeil. “Enough to know you are wasting your time.”

“And _you_ have no call to tell me how I should waste my time.”

“So you do know it’s hopeless.” Taeil clicks his tongue in despair. A second later he turns his gaze back toward Yuta. Yuta expects a threat, a cold word of warning, or at the very least, a summons to get lost.

What he gets instead is a sincere look of scathing pity. The newest demon shakes his head, then looks away, out the window from whence he apparently came.

“I have a message for you, Sicheng.”

“A message? And what do you want in exchange for delivering this… message?” says Sicheng defensively.

“Oh, are we dealing in fair trade then?” Taeil smirks. “I was going to say it was more of a friendly… warning, but perhaps we can make a deal.”

Sicheng sighs. “Just tell me what you want.”

“Perhaps I already got what I wanted.”

Silence reigns for a long, static moment, as Taeil rakes his eyes down the exposed bits of Sicheng’s body, then shifts his gaze to Yuta’s. “You two do have such an _interesting_ , prolific relationship. At night,” he adds, and  Yuta has no doubts that somehow, through some bizarre supernatural way, their activities have not gone unnoticed.

Yuta’s cheeks redden at the implication, but Sicheng remains impassive.

“Come again yourself if you’re that desperate. Now leave your message and be gone.”

Taeil holds his hands up in mock surrender, but he’s already standing up. His wings fold behind him in an artless gesture as he approaches the window, head turned and continuing to smile. At the last second though, the expression disappears and that look of pity resounds once more.

“Watch yourself and your lover, Sicheng. Jaehyun is on the prowl.”

 

 

Hours later, and under the cover of daylight finally, Yuta still can’t get a response about who or what Jaehyun is. He follows an exasperated Sicheng around the apartment, sleep-deprived and wary. His arguments are starting to feel hollow, his complaints repetitious.

“You slink into my house and refuse to leave, at least tell me what is going on!”

“You don’t need to worry about it.”

“That’s not how it sounded when that, that _demon_ said it last night!”

“Taeil exaggerates. It’s his gift to mankind.” Sicheng scoffs and turns his back to Yuta.

They eat breakfast and watch TV, and Yuta spends a few more hours ignoring both Sicheng _and_ his phone, which is blowing up from texts from his friends asking why he wasn’t around last night. Taeyong sounds especially sad. Lucas is growing more and more suspicious that something is the matter, even going so far to ask if it’s something about Taeyong.

“Maybe you just need to leave,” Yuta announces bitterly after the resolution of one particularly inane sitcom episode.

Sicheng treats him to silence for several long commercials. When Yuta repeats himself, the demon finally responds. “I don’t know where else to go.”

It’s the first acknowledgment that it’s Sicheng’s choice to remain here, not because he has no other option, but because he wants to.

“So? Tell me who Jaehyun is and maybe I’ll reconsider.”

Sicheng still won’t say, and Yuta doesn’t test his strength at demon removal until another half of his day is gone. Instead, he dresses for work earlier than usual, stuffs his personal belongings into a bag which he throws over his shoulder and locks Sicheng in.

There’s a coffee shop around the corner equidistant from his apartment and the grocery store. Yuta rarely goes inside anymore. The coffee is good, but the price is more than he can afford on a daily basis. On top of that, the place feels too homey, comfortable, and safe. If Yuta wanted homey, he’d be back in Japan with his family. If he wanted comfortable, he’d have never left his shared dorm with Lucas and the other guys. If safe, well… Yuta is a safety hazard to all but Sicheng apparently, who might just be getting Yuta into a reversal of roles. And Yuta can’t handle that, which is why he finds himself at the counter ordering the smallest drink he can possibly afford, and a banana just for fun.

There aren’t that many college students in the place. It’s not that kind of neighborhood. If Yuta walked another five or six blocks he’d be closer to his former university and back in the heart of that place where happily he once dwelled. Another reason he moved farther away. Yuta doesn’t want to be reminded of all he left behind.

He especially didn’t want to run into anybody he knew. Like Taeyong.

It’s when Yuta turns around, drink order in hand, banana balancing in the crook of his arm that he sees him across the cafe, bright colored crutches resting against the table. He’s alone but looking right at Yuta. Taeyong smiles and waves one hand. Taeyong, who doesn’t even _know._

And Yuta knows he’s trapped.

He makes his way to to the corner table, incredulous smile on his face, forcing himself to fake it.

“H-heey, Taeyong.” If his voice warbles more than the occasion warrants, Taeyong doesn’t mention it.

“Yuta.” Taeyong beams at him. “Didn’t think I’d run into you so fast.”

“So fast? Does... that mean you were planning on it sometime?”

“Well, I was thinking of stopping by your apartment. Seeing as how you’ve been ignoring me for days.” Taeyong chuckles like it’s a mere accident his best friend’s been ghosting on him for over a week. Like Yuta is just too busy with work or school to meet and catch up. And maybe that’s how Yuta’s been spinning it to his friends too, except all of them know he doesn’t go to school anymore, that he dropped out six months ago, and that his only job is working the graveyard shift at the local grocery store, wasting away his life resources and being, in general, a mopey pain in the ass.

For a full minute they sip their drinks, and Yuta covertly considers how Taeyong looks today. His hair is a soft brown parted down the middle, unstyled. His face is bare. Long gone though are the darkened circles under his eyes. He’s gained some muscle tone, and his arms are understandably better built from the last few months of crutches. From what Ten hinted at a couple weeks ago, Taeyong may not even need them much longer. His leg is improving fast. Not fast enough to let Taeyong ever take up his passion again, but then… Taeyong always acted cheerful when talking about his abrupt transfer between majors: Dance, to Business.

Poor, poor Taeyong, who doesn’t know how bad an actor he is.

“How’s life going for you then?” asks Taeyong.

Yuta shrugs. “Nothing new.” _Just sleeping with a demon every night._ _Probably going to hell._ “How about you?”

Taeyong grins, and he’s just so precious, genuinely considering his life like it’s going so well, that Yuta can’t stand it. “I might have met someone last night.” His eyes twinkle in delight.

“Really?” Yuta forces himself to smile. “At your… uhm, whatever it was, dinner?”

“Yeah. New waiter at my favorite restaurant. He uhh, asked me for my number and then we hung out after his shift.”

“Nice. What’s he like?” says Yuta with more enthusiasm that he actually has. He’s not jealous Taeyong is happy. It’s never been about that. It’s just that Yuta can’t relate.

Taeyong sits back and grins out the window. Yuta almost misses the wince he makes adjusting his feet into another position under the table.

“Really funny. Hot. Hot _and_ cute.”

“Sounds like a winner. When’s the wedding?”

Taeyong chuckles. “Tomorrow, hence the reason I’m tracking you down today to deliver the invitation.”

They share a laugh, and for a few seconds, Yuta swears he can feel that old vibe bubbling up inside him, back from when he had no shame and no guilt, and Taeyong was that person Yuta loved being around the most.

He’s not ready for Taeyong’s most direct attack yet.

“Yuta.”

“What?”

“When are you going to come back to school?”

“What?”

“The guys are all asking. Shit, Yuta, _I’m_ asking. It’s been what, a whole semester? I mean, everyone’s allowed to have a little break. Stuff gets stressful, we all get burned out.”

This coming from Taeyong who refused a leave of absence after his fucking leg got crushed by a hit-and-run accident.

Yuta doesn’t want to talk about this. Even if he’s made some bullshit excuses to his family, and some even lamer excuses to his friends, most of them believe it’s just as Taeyong said. That Yuta is stressed, that he got burned out. That he had a small little drinking problem and this is part of his self-diagnosed recovery mission. That’s why Ten appointed himself Yuta’s accountability partner, not that Yuta ever asked for it. That’s why Taeyong gives him so much leeway and doesn’t ask any of the deeper questions.

He tries to play it off cool. “I don’t know? Maybe next semester.” That’s a lie; he hasn’t considered it at all, and at this point in time he doesn’t think he’s ready to consider anything soon, if ever. Isn’t that the fun part of being self-destructive? You don’t have to think about the future?

Taeyong looks partially appeased, if not convinced. He knows not to push. “You know you can talk to me about… anything. Right?” he whispers instead.

Yuta genuinely smiles at him. “I know. I will sometime. Thanks.” Another lie. Yuta doesn’t deserve someone like him. Maybe what he really deserves is someone like… who knows.

“So tell me more about Mystery Man,” says Yuta, changing the subject once again. He lets Taeyong ramble for a bit about how attractive this guy is, how handsome, how tall. How he’s probably a few years younger than him but seems wise beyond his age. How he has the cutest dimples.

“I think I’m in love,” Taeyong sighs, faux-dreamily.

“I can see that. This Mystery Man is certainly… dreamy.”

“Right? Mystery Man.” Taeyong chuckles. “Feels weird to call him that though. I feel like I know him so well already, is that too bizarre?”

Yuta takes a sip from the dregs of his now lukewarm coffee.  “Only you can say. What’s his name, anyway? Since you don’t like ‘Mystery Man’”.

“Oh, didn’t I mention that?”

Yuta shakes his head. “Nope.”

“It’s Jaehyun. Jaehyun. A nice name, don’t you think? _Jae-hyun_.”

 

 

 

 

Yuta rushes out of the coffee shop so fast, he loses the echo of Taeyong’s voice yelling after him within seconds. The bell over the door clangs loudly; he shuts the door recklessly behind him, feet marching back home, his heart pounding.

Sicheng. Sicheng needs to explain this right now because there’s no way it’s a coincidence. The name ‘Jaehyun’ isn’t completely unheard of these days, but the chances of Taeyong running into something like that? Last night? At his favorite restaurant? Right after Taeil gave Sicheng a warning. Something doesn’t make sense, and Yuta is determined to find out what.

Sicheng hasn’t moved in the time Yuta’s been away. He looks up perplexed from his armchair—why is everyone always sitting on Yuta’s favorite furniture?!—eyebrows up, otherwise expressionless. Yuta doesn’t allow him time to ask.

“Jaehyun,” he says firmly, approaching the demon. He stops right in front of him, forcing Sicheng to look up. At this angle, it’s hard to believe he’s not human. His horns are in shadow, wings semi-folded at his back, tail curled up somewhere unseen beneath the billowing blanket Sicheng has deemed his own. He always complains that compared to where he came from, it’s colder up here.

The demon blinks at him. “I told you, Jaehyun isn’t an issue.”

“No? Well it’s an issue now. I just met Taeyong, and guess who he met last night? Someone named Jaehyun. I think you can just tell me right now everything I want to know, or you can get out, and take your demon friends with you!”

Sicheng contemplates this threat for a few seconds. He sets down his book. “That’s not an uncommon name.”

“No, try again,” barks Yuta. “Because I don’t believe it’s a coincidence.”

Slowly, the demon tosses off his blanket and stands up. Yuta should be used to his presence by now, but every now and then, it still takes him back. Sicheng is taller than him, pale and stunning, and when he releases his wings, all-around breathtaking. Most days Yuta finds him unintimidating, but that moment isn’t now.

Yuta forgets to breathe as Sicheng takes a step toward him. He steps back on instinct, resolve faltering.

Slower this time, more passive, he says, “Sicheng, I want to know about Jaehyun. Why is he hanging around my friend.”

“Your friend. You mean Taeyong?”

Yuta nods.

“You haven’t been _friends_ with Taeyong in six months, Yuta.” Sicheng says it so blunt, Yuta almost gets whiplash.

“I have…” he tries to insist.

But Sicheng smirks. “Really? After what you did to him, you still call yourself a friend.”

Yuta _hates_ that Sicheng knows everything about him, everything that Yuta was, what he _did_.

“That-that was an accident.”

And Sicheng nods. “It was. Quite unfortunate. You made a mistake. A really, bad mistake.  But you never apologized for it. You never paid penance.” The demon punctuates his words, face close to Yuta’s to drive the point across. He’s almost spitting.

“And, and. So?” Yuta flails. He takes another step back until his knees hit the couch and he can’t go any farther. “Is that what you’re here for? Is that why you found me, attached yourself to my life, and now refuse to leave? You’re here to punish me. That’s what demons do, isn’t it? That’s why you’re fucking here!”

Sicheng starts to laugh, and Yuta is growing angrier. It’s all true, everything Sicheng said, every-fucking-thing. But he’s also frightened. Surely there’s a proverb out there somewhere about not making a demon mad. Frightened and cornered, however, Yuta wants to make him mad. He wants this to blow up, he can’t even lie.

Instead, when the demon finishes laughing, his expression grows calm, pitying. It reminds him of the look Taeil gave to both of them. How bad is it when a demon starts to pity you, Yuta wonders.

“I’m not here to punish you, Yuta. I want… I wanted…”

All this time Yuta’s never figured out what Sicheng wants other than what he demands when they’re having sex. He wants to be fucked, he wants to be loved. Sicheng has never asked for anything but that. He lives in Yuta’s apartment, and he eats his food, reads Yuta’s books and watches Yuta’s television. He either doesn’t have anywhere to go, or he just doesn’t want to go. Why would a demon want to sit around with Yuta all the time? What possible reason could he have if he’s not here to torment him? Isn’t it enough that Yuta torments himself—

Wait. Yuta sifts through his memories of the past week, falling back on their first real conversation.

 _“I’ll admit I was drawn to you,”_ Sicheng said then. _“You have so much, loathing in you. So much self-_ disgust _. You’re a beacon for someone of my kind.”_

“I’m your beacon,” Yuta says now. “Isn’t that what you said. You, you basically feed off my loathsome energy. That’s why you came to me.”

Sicheng’s pitying smile only grows. “See, you catch on just fine. That’s half the reason-

“You, you’re just a leech,” Yuta interrupts him.

The demon’s smile immediately drops. “I said that’s only half the reason!”

“Okay?! So what’s the other half? You found the most despicable human on earth. Congratulations, I’m a fine meal for you! And now that you’ve gotten your fill, you think you and your demon friends can just hound me? How is that fair?!”

“I’m not hounding you!” cries Sicheng, practically snarling. “I focused on you at that party because you were a spotlight for someone like me, yes.”

“So, I was easy pickings.”

“Will you shut up and let me finish?! NO, you weren’t easy pickings. You’re a human being, and I’m a demon. Which means you’re difficult, and I’m a fucking mess.” Yuta might have stated it the other way around, but Sicheng goes on. “Do you know what life is like for my kind? You can’t be unfamiliar with the concept of hell; your world is steeped in it. But for a demon like me… to be out here, to be with an actual human even for such a short time as this… it’s, it’s…”

He doesn’t get the opportunity to say it. Unbeknownst to either of them, Yuta’s front door comes barreling open. He and Sicheng jump apart and turn towards it, and to Yuta’s great horror, in comes Lucas, key in hand, followed by Ten, followed by Taeyong.

All five of them freeze. The three in the doorway barely make it inside before their eyes grow wide in horror. Yuta knows just how they feel. From their perspective, Yuta is practically cowering beneath an impossibly demonic-looking creature with wings outspread, eyes blazened black, horns, a tail, and that horrible demon-speak tattoo spiraling up and down his torso, sides, and back.

“Holy Mother of G-” Lucas starts to say.

Ten actually shouts.  

Taeyong stands lock-limbed in fright.

And then the fight begins.

“The fuck!” screams Ten. He pushes his way past his boyfriend, striding bravely towards Yuta to snatch him away. Sicheng deftly lets him pass, but there’s a challenge in his eyes when he sees Yuta resisting, and Ten insisting all the more to pull him back.

“I’m fine!” Yuta shouts. “Let me go.”

“Yuta,” Lucas’s voice booms across the room. “What is… that’s a demon! An actual demon!”

“No shit, Lucas,” says Ten. “Grab Yuta, we’re getting out of here! Taeyong, move!”

Taeyong is still blocking the door, speechless. His crutches have fallen to the ground but he doesn’t seem able to move, even if he had them.

Yuta throws off another of Ten’s arm grabs, prompting Ten to go with another strategy. He picks up the nearest large object to him, a hardback fantasy novel, and brandishes it at Sicheng. The demon hisses and springs backward. Yuta jumps between the two.

“Ten, stop it! Will you just, stop! He’s not going to hurt anyone!” A few minutes ago Yuta believed just that, but all this is going too fast for him.

Ten speaks to him as to a child. “Yuta… it’s going to be okay. You, you’ve been charmed, or something.

“Are you... What the fuck, Ten? No! I’m perfectly aware of what’s going on here.” He’s not, but that doesn’t matter here. “I know he’s a demon. His name’s Sicheng, okay. You saw him last week. He’s been living here for a week!”

“Sicheng? Who’s Sicheng?” asks Lucas, like he can’t believe a demon has a real name.

Ten, on the other hand, is looking at Sicheng as if just remembering that yes indeed, they met before.  He doesn’t seem relieved. “You’ve had a demon in your house for a week…”

And others, Yuta doesn’t add. “Uhh, yes.”

The conversation comes to a standstill. Yuta notices Sicheng mildly lowering his wings. His fight or flight instinct must have finally clicked off. Ten lowers his hands, and the book. Yuta remembers to breathe. Lucas’s mouth keeps opening and closing, but no sound comes out. Eventually, Taeyong manages to find his own voice.

“Yuta? Does this have something to do with why you ran out of the coffee shop? It’s connected, right? I mentioned Jaehyun and, but...”

Yuta looks at Sicheng, who stares grimly back. In the same moment, Yuta swears the atmosphere around them changes. There’s a gust of wind blowing from his bedroom, a sound like curtains flapping. Yuta only knows this feeling because it’s happened before. Why can’t these demons _ever_ use the damned door?

His friends notice the shift too, clueless though they are. It doesn’t feel like Taeil’s presence. Upon meeting his third supernatural being, Yuta is starting to recognize this sensation. They all feel different, they all have their own vibe. Each have been more powerful than the first.

The difference now is that he Sicheng is afraid.

The demon inches away from the bedroom door, almost hiding behind Yuta. His three friends are looking about the room in confusion. None of them speak, but imperceptibly they’ve all crept further from the door as well.

Something loud thuds against the floor. A window shuts closed. Sicheng creeps close to Yuta, his body trembling. He doesn't know why he does it, but Yuta puts back a hand, offering it to the demon. A second later, Sicheng clasps it. By his footsteps, the creature is approaching the open bedroom door.

Yuta conjures up the scariest monster possible. Wings darker than midnight, terrifying skin, horns longer than his legs, a distorted face. Would he be dressed in leather? Surely. Would his fingers contain talons? Undoubtedly. Nothing less for a creature Sicheng promised wouldn’t harm him, but almost definitely causes him to shrink in fright.

Yuta braces himself to meet Jaehyun. There’s no other person it could be. He holds his breath, blinks once, then twice, presses Sicheng’s fingers securely between his hand and waits…

And finally, out walks the creature. Jaehyun.

Yuta doesn't know what he’s supposed to think. Jaehyun is… tall, and good looking. He has sandy brown hair and a nice face. He’s wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. He looks so… normal. He smiles and Yuta gets a look at those fabled dimples Taeyong was going on about not more than half an hour ago.

Of course, the one who looks really confused is Taeyong.

“Jaehyun?” he says incredulously. Yuta has such a bad feeling about this, but Taeyong just proved that it’s the same person. Jaehyun _is_ the creature Taeil warned them about, but Jaehyun is also masquerading as a love interest for Taeyong.

Why, Yuta wants to know. And for what reason? How elaborate must these demons go to get their revenge on the sins of one person, and how does tormenting Yuta mean they get to mess with Taeyong? _What about Taeyong is so bad that Jaehyun could be attracted to him_? Why Taeyong, when Taeyong is a veritable angle among men?!

The creature smiles at Taeyong, almost apologetically. “I’m sorry, Taeyong. Didn’t exactly mean to meet again this soon.”

He offers no explanation. Even worse, Sicheng is still trembling at Yuta’s back. His energy is so palpable it’s starting to spill over into Yuta.

“I don’t understand,” says Taeyong. “Why are you in Yuta’s apartment.”

Yuta feels compelled to answer. “He’s not human, Taeyong. Can’t you feel it?”

Taeyong blinks. “Not. Human. What?” They all look between Jaehyun and Sicheng.

“He’s a demon,” Yuta answers instead.

For some reason, Jaehyun laughs. He tosses his head back, then shakes it incredulously. “Yuta, Yuta,” he says in sing-song. “You think you’ve figured everything out.”

“I’m right though,” he insists.

Sicheng is frantically squeezing his hand. Yuta wishes he would just talk and not cower. What is it about Jaehyun that frightens him so? Sicheng told him before that more powerful demons could hide their features. And Jaehyun to all appearances has nothing that would describe him as demonic. He has no wings, no horns, no obvious tail. He looks like a regular guy, exactly the kind that Taeyong might fall for.

Yuta is so confused he almost misses Ten’s next outburst.

“You’ve lost it,” Ten says. “You’ve utterly lost it.”

“What?” Yuta turns to him.

Ten is staring at him horrified. _Him_ , Yuta, not Sicheng, not Jaehyun. “You’re amazing. Utterly amazing, Yuta. I don’t even know what’s going on, but somehow you’ve been shacking up with a demon _and_ messing with Taeyong’s guy? Are _you_ even human? Were you so bitterly jealous of Taeyong not liking you back that you have to go on this weird month-long pity spree and _then_ you’re still not happy?!”

And it’s at this very moment, Yuta truly does lose it. “What?!” There are tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “What? Is _that_ what you think?”

He can’t believe it.

Somewhere he’s lost Sicheng’s hand. He stamps up to Ten with no conscious intention to do anything other than _stare_ at him for this crazy idea. His way is blocked, however, by Lucas.

“Woah, woah, hold it just a moment!” Lucas is taller than Yuta, not exactly an intimidating species, but he definitely has more muscle on his side, and besides, it’s not like Yuta was planning to lay one out on Ten. The pair doesn’t seem to believe this though. Ten takes a step back, and Lucas won’t let Yuta through.

Yuta does the next best thing. He wheedles out of Lucas’ grip and turns to Taeyong. His poor friend looks so miserably shocked. “Taeyong!” Yuta shouts. “That is _not_ true.”

“You mean you don’t like him?” shouts Ten, scoffing.

“I don’t!”

“Could have fooled me.”

“But, I don’t!” Yuta insists.

He sends a pleading look in Taeyong’s direction, begging him to understand. The problem is, Taeyong can’t possibly understand, because Taeyong doesn’t know the truth. The only people that do are Yuta and Sicheng. And if Jaehyun is a demon like the others, then he does too.

Ten still can’t believe him. “So what, you’re telling us you like that demon behind you? Sicheng, that’s his name?”

“I…”

Does Yuta like him? He doesn’t dislike him. Sicheng has been more of a companion than anyone Yuta’s ever had. They mostly get along, and they’re so compatible, but Sicheng is a demon and…

“Shit!” he cries. “This isn’t about me. This is about… him!’ Yuta points at Jaehyun.

They all look. It’s killing Yuta that Taeyong still looks the most betrayed. Yuta rounds away from his friends and takes an impulsive stance before the demon. Sicheng doesn’t even try to hold Yuta back, because Sicheng still won’t go near him.

Yuta glares at Jaehyun. “You’re the one who’s hurting Taeyong, and you’re the one who’s here to provoke me. So, you explain.”

“Me?” Jaehyun points to himself. “Here to provoke you?” Then he laughs. “I’m only here to keep tabs on that one over there. As for you, why should I provoke you? I’m no demon. Consider me instead an accidental guardian angel. I’m here to protect you, and Taeyong, and anyone else who happens to get in _his_ way.”

Yuta draws back, a silent gasp emitting from his throat. Jaehyun is pointing unmistakably behind Yuta, at Sicheng’s wavering figure. Yuta looks, and the demon, far from looking cowed, now looks like a wild animal backed into a corner. His wings have grown again, his eyes are practically sparkling black. He looks seconds away from attacking, and yet he doesn’t move.

“Sicheng?” Yuta asks him quietly. He points at Jaehyun. “He’s not a demon? How is he not a demon? _What_ is he, if he’s not a demon?”

But Yuta thinks he already knows. Jaehyun said it himself, didn’t he? And if Sicheng chose Yuta to feed off his negative energy, then Jaehyun attaching himself to Taeyong would be because—

“He’s an angel.”

Sicheng’s voice is so soft.

“He’s a what?” Yuta has to ask. He needs to hear it again.

“I said, he’s an angel. He wants me to leave, he’s trying to scare me off. I don’t want to go back though, I won’t. I don’t want… I…”

“Fuck,” Yuta swears softly. It really is all about him then. He’s the one who hurt Taeyong, he’s the one who drew himself away from his friends, he’s the one whose energy drew Sicheng to himself, and now there’s a demon practically crying, and an angel out to get him, and that angel inadvertently hurt Taeyong, so Yuta’s come full circle and it’s all his fucking fault.

Much, much later, Yuta will recognize the flaw in his rationality. He’ll remember what Sicheng said to him about _friends_ , what they do for each other, what they sacrifice and what they protect. He’ll remember how fascinating it was to see Ten acting so concerned for him, for Taeyong to be always reaching out to Yuta even though Yuta treated him like shit. Sicheng, the demon, is the one who came to this world and learned something about humankind that even Yuta couldn’t grasp.

It takes a confrontation between four best friends, an angel, and a demon for Yuta to realize it’s not actually about him, himself and he.

The first step Jaehyun takes in Sicheng’s direction causes the demon to hiss and spread his wings even longer than Yuta has ever seen. In return, all the angel reacts in a heartbeat. His head rolls back, and all at once, wings sprout from his back. But they’re not the same as a demon’s. Jaehyun’s are white, streaked with gray, soft but majestic. Almost blinding! Yuta has to squint and look away. He sees Ten and Lucas huddling together against the wall, Taeyong beside them with his arm partially covering his eyes. They look utterly terrified, but all Yuta can think about is Sicheng and his alarm at being separated from Yuta.

He dashes to the demon’s side right as Jaehyun speaks. His voice comes out lower, authority dripping from each word.

“Your time is up, Sicheng.”

But Sicheng continues to hiss, silently now, his face distorted in fear and anger. “I won’t leave,” he says through clenched teeth.

“You will.”

“No.”

Sicheng’s defiance though is waning, of that Yuta can tell. He doesn’t know how to approach the demon. Does he take his hand, insist he can stay. Or does he take the word of an angel that this demon is no good? Why though, when Sicheng has never hurt him? Sicheng just wants to be free of… wherever he came from. He wants to be loved. He came to Yuta looking for just that, and all Yuta’s done is take it for granted and accused him of lying.

He almost misses Taeyong crying to him from across the room. “Yuta… Yuta, just let it go. Please?”

Yuta shakes his head. “No… I don’t, Taeyong, you don’t understand.”

“I do, Yuta, believe me. But Yuta, that’s a demon behind you. Sicheng’s a demon. Do you _get_ that?!”

Jaehyun is still approaching. In another setting, Yuta would think him beautiful. And maybe he really is a guardian angel here for mankind’s best interest, but Yuta thinks he knows Sicheng better. If anything, he knows himself better. And Yuta is no good, but if that’s the case then maybe and Sicheng belong together. Maybe Sicheng is good. He seems like it, he definitely _could_ be.

The angel advances another step and this time he’s practically begging. “Sicheng, you know it’s for the best. You know as well what you are. This isn’t the place for you.”

There’s an energy spinning about the room, all the forces of heaven and hell in a tug-of-war right here in Yuta’s apartment. All at once it forces Yuta to his knees. His head spins, his vision blanks out momentarily. When he can see again, everything is out of focus, and he’s looking at Sicheng. The demon seems about to burst.

“I know my strengths, Jaehyun. I can handle them, I promise you.”

“Can you though? Can you promise Yuta? What about your weaknesses. You crave destruction, you know you do. And you’ll carve it from reality, given time.”

“I won’t!”

“You will. You’re about to, right now, aren’t you?”

“Sicheng…” Yuta tries to reach him. The demon looms overhead. All Yuta can touch are his feet. He can suddenly feel the raw _power_ radiating from his body. Well, Yuta wanted a blow out earlier, and apparently this is it. Between an angel and a demon, who is going to win?

“You’ll hurt Yuta.”

“I couldn’t possibly.”

“Nevertheless, you will.”

Something bursts when Jaehyun touches the demon. He grabs him by the arm, and Sicheng begins to shriek. “And?! Maybe he needs it?”

Yuta is going to throw up. He still can’t get to his feet. Taeyong’s frightened crouch remains in his peripheral vision. Straight overhead though he can see the angel cock his head sideways as if the overpowering of a demon is merely a bemusing spectacle.

“Oh? And explain how that might be the case?”

Sicheng scoffs, and it’s a miracle he can do so even under the angel’s spell. The two beings stare at one another, humans temporarily forgotten.

“How?” hisses the demon. “You know how. You’ve felt it on him. The guilt, the stain. He’s eating himself up from the inside out, and why? Because you angels only care about formalities and not interfering where you don’t happen to be. But me? I know the cause and I know how to fix it.”

“By feeding off of it?”

“Yes. And no.”

In one fell swoop, the demon manages to cast Jaehyun off his arm. The angel is forced to take a step back. He looks angry, almost stunned. Definitely stressed, and he reaches out once more as if to keep the demon from speaking.

It’s too late though. Too late for Yuta and his secrets, all of his guilt, and his entire existence hiding from the past.

Because yes, it takes the confrontation of an angel and a demon to uproot his sins, but it also takes the truth.

Sicheng’s smile turns sour, his expression feral. Yuta shakes his head because somehow he knows just what is about to be said.

“Yuta is only like this because of what he did to Taeyong. Tell them all, Jaehyun! Tell them Yuta was the hit-and-run driver who caused Taeyong’s accident. Or, sorry. Didn’t you mention that to him last night when you were trying to woo him over? You want to keep humanity in a tight, protective bubble in order for it to not spill over and damn them, but this is what it’s bred. Yuta did all that, so there! Let them all get used to _that!"_

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been a week, and Yuta hasn’t seen much of anyone in all that time. That doesn’t mean his friends are ignoring him, however. On the contrary, Yuta’s spent more time talking to Taeyong on the phone than they ever did before that _accident_. Taeyong, who is too good for this world, who forgives so easily even though the shock of hearing the truth almost caused him to pass out.

Ten’s forgiveness is still a work in progress, as if Lucas’s although Yuta thinks Lucas will cave sooner than the other. He’s talked to him too once or twice this week. He knows his friends need time. Yuta’s had six months to deal with the consequences of his actions, and suffice it to say, he didn’t exactly deal with it very well. The proof of that is in his bed right now.

Sicheng is still here. Under probation and the watchful eye of Jaehyun, an angel Yuta has gone from fearing, to resenting, to finally tolerating. Yuta can’t say he ever wanted anyone but himself to know what happened that night. It’s as Sicheng said. He made a mistake, a very bad mistake. He thought he could handle his liquor. He’d done it before. So he left the bar after an evening celebrating the end of midterms, intending to join his friends for another round. He thought he’d be cute, showing off his skills. Instead, he ran into his best friend, and in the haze of sudden awareness, took off before anyone could recognize his car.

At least Taeyong is alive for Yuta to apologize. It took him long enough. And if takes the rest of Yuta’s life to earn Taeyong’s full forgiveness, he’ll take that too.

Sicheng did him a favor. And for that, or maybe in spite of that, Jaehyun let him be.

Every day now he learns more and more about this demon who wheedled himself into Yuta’s life. Sicheng also feels terrible for revealing the truth that way. He admits he is callous, blunt, that he prefers the ripping off of a scab instead of leaving it alone. But ever since that day, he’s buried his power so deep Yuta can hardly feel its presence. Yuta still doesn’t know what exactly Sicheng is running away from, but by the demon’s actions, he can guess.

Taeil came to visit again. He chided his demon friend for ‘playing house’ and begged him to return. He hinted at such ghastly things for Sicheng to engage in, the demon actually banished him from the room before Yuta could hear them.

So yes, for now, there are secrets between them which Yuta would rather not know. He thinks he can live with it though. As long as Sicheng is with him, Yuta has someone to rely on, someone to talk to, a relationship to build or destroy, and right now he’d rather build it. Sicheng is his connection back to his friends, whether that’s how it was supposed to work or not.

It’s early in the morning when Yuta awakes. He still has half his day before him, and another night shift at the grocery store ahead. Yuta has half a mind to just quit and re-apply for another semester at the university. But for now, that’s a slow process. He’ll get to it eventually, maybe. In the meantime, he strokes Sicheng’s naked back, fingertips fondling the ridge where his wings begin. A few of the feathers are bent, crumpled, or just plain missing. Sicheng says not to worry about them, that they’ll grow back.

Last night he asked him what that other reason was Sicheng had for finding, and then staying with Yuta. The second thing Sicheng never got a chance to say.

 _“Hmmm?”_ the demon had moaned. Yuta had him right where he liked, spread-eagled on the bed with his hands and feet tied to the posts with some nice silk ribbons Yuta bought just for the occasion.

_“You said you fed off my energy, and that was the first reason. What was the second?”_

Eyes covered by another ribbon, Sicheng just grinned. _“Oh?”_ He took his sweet time answering, and for that Yuta removed his hands from the demon’s aching body, from the sweat he’d built up, denying him that sweet release. And Sicheng keened, desperately, wings fluttering, trapped beneath his body He thrust his hips but found no friction, and the demon moaned again.

 _“Tell me,”_ Yuta demanded. He leaned over low and breathed hotly against Sicheng’s hard cock.

It had taken another few minutes of intense teaching before Sicheng finally grinned and said, “This. It was for this… Do you know how wonderful it is, to be at someone else’s mercy? To just, let myself give up control and just _be?”_

Yuta has some idea now. And fortunately, it’s just what he is able to provide.

With the sun fluttering through the semi-open curtains, a long night of love-making behind them, he smiles, nudging closer to the demon’s warm body, practically burying himself under Sicheng’s wings. In daylight, Sicheng is a powerful creature, but here in this bed, it’s Yuta who gets to be that person Sicheng delights in giving himself to.

  
  



End file.
